Red Lights

I was watching Red Lights, a film I have been trying to watch for months now (hard to find due to limited release), and overall I thought it was really interesting and cool. It is about Tom Buckley (played by Cillian Murphy) and Margaret Matheson (played by Sigourney Weaver). Buckley assists Matheson who works at an university studying paranormal activity, and her and Tom investigate and go around proving famous psychics to be frauds. Until they come across Simon Silver (played by Robert De Niro), that is when stuff gets a bit crazier. I'll stop with the summary here because I think you should see it. It has mixed reviews because of the ending, but I liked it a lot. Now you may think that is because Cillian Murphy stars in it, and he is my favorite actor but I also take a lot of interest in supernatural things. It is because of that I like drawing all these creatures with strange little stories in my mind. It is because of that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Although I must say Cillian Murphy's performance was excellent. I also like how Red Lights was filmed. I thought each shot was beautiful in it's own little weird way. I don't want to get too much into the plot and what I think about it without any of you seeing it. If you would like to watch it, let me know! I have it on dvd.

Today we celebrated Shostegigi. A fabulous holiday indeed. There is never a dull moment guess who the person is, seeing the reactions of those receiving  and all the small jokes in between.  I tried a lot of cheeses today. I don't think I can consider myself a cheese person but I like to try new things. Sometimes. Other times I am incredibly boring about everything I do (fun fact: I normally get plain vanilla ice cream with no toppings when getting ice cream at places that can provide me with ice cream). That or I plan to be adventurous and back out at the last second because I get too anxious. The other day I was about to buy a tshirt with a puppy chewing on a bloody hand but then I got afraid it was a waste of money and put it back (Caitlin and Jenna got peer pressured by the cashier and then gave it to me). I am going to sleep now.
right now.
now.
just kidding not yet.
now.
nope.
adjkf;djf lxczdjk (now. imagine my head just hit the keyboard as I went to sleep).

Today I carved into linoleum for the first time. I didn't cut my hand with the carving tool but I did scraped the top of my knuckle on the linoleum itself. However I am a strong big girl and I didn't cry.
I got to see Megan's movie and again after we re shot it. It is always nice to see your time and effort coming into a final product. Of course after you get over how strange your voice is and how odd your face is from various angles it is nice and rewarding.

Why even try?

Today I was talking to Michelle while she was reading an article about how schools should teach students not only what they teach now but also teach about character and how that can also make you a successful person. It also said something about how you should fail so you can build yourself back up and won't a bid fear of failing. This is something I think may be a good idea, but I am not willing to take that risk. Even my therapist encourages me to try to 'not care about school so much' and 'maybe failing a class' won't kill me. I try so hard in school that I have had many teachers over the years call me a perfectionist. Last year my chemistry teacher called me 'nervous Nelly' and'worry wart Sarah'. Just today in my English class I got so anxious that I started crying. That made me think about why I do care so much about how I do in school. Who am I trying to please? What am I trying to prove?
     Maybe I am trying not to disappoint my parents. Maybe I am trying not to disappoint myself. Maybe I am trying not to disappoint people that don't even care how I do in school. I think because I have done well in school most of my life that if I ever stray from that I am a failure and I don't deserve anything. I also think it could be because I am not 100% sure what I want to do with my life, so by having good grades I can keep my options open. Although my parents are a bit supportive of my love for art I feel like they are afraid for me to go into the arts. I think they want me to keep it more as a hobby. Today on a commercial I pointed out the use of Benedict's solution to indicate if the tested solution had simple sugars in it. My mom replied saying that I should be a doctor or go into the science field and get rich and happy and do art for fun, not a career. I'm sort of used to hearing this. I remember when I was little being told that I can never make a living in art, and I'll end starving. This isn't really what a kid wants to hear and may cause more fear in the future.

Just thinking out loud.

Kontroll your thoughts.

There is something about Kontroll that speaks to me but I think it is mumbling. Although I'm not exactly sure what it is to me personally yet, but it is a film that will stick with me. Something I'll keep in my mind for a very long time. Maybe the movie is more of an experience to have than something to understand. I liked how there was something interesting about every character. Even the people you only see for a minute still leaves something in your mind. One that stuck to my eyelids was Laci. We don't see him a lot through out the film but there is still something about him that stuck with me. They way we was kinda off, in the beginning when Bulscu asked him if he was alright, and his reply being, "Great, just looking forward to getting back to work" when it is obvious this job is horrible. Then next time we see Laci, he snapped and slit a man's throat.

Another thing I was thinking about was how from the first time we see Bulscu, he is bleeding. He has a bloody nose when he lifts his head up the first time in the film. We never know what it came from but it is assumed that it is from his job as a kontroll. He never gets healed, but only gets worse until the murderer gets hit by the train and Bulscu finally leaves.

Writing this has helped with the comprehending the mumbling but I still need to think more about it.

If I wasn't nervous on the subway before, I am now. I spent a lot of time on subways this summer and each time there was always somebody really interesting. I think about what each of their lives may be like. 

By the way did we watch Kontroll because of the guy who got pushed in front of the subway the other day?

What a nice reminder to know that kind of stuff really happens.

On another note: If you don't know I have a daily practice where I do a drawing each day that relates to a song. here is the blog. If I don't post everyday, I still do them everyday. Follow it?

New 365.

I am attempting a 365 again.
I know the whole following system on this website is kind of confusing now but try to follow it
http://tinybluedeer.blogspot.com/

I am doing a doodle a day that is inspired by a song.

Here is day one:

and here is a picture of me at Hicks

and me feeding small animals

I hope you have a nice day.

Pas de Cheval

I have been trying to blog for the past two weeks but after play rehearsals and homework I pass out to wake up and do it again. But enough with the poor excuses and onto what I wanted to say!

PAINTING.
So my "Alex Katz" style painting painting went from a sad attempt at Alex Katz to a promising hell (but my favorite kind).
I just got an iphone (moving my way into the smartphone life) so I don't have the pictures of the process but:

This is possibly the most stressful painting I've worked on. I knew I didn't like the first version but I have never really had to redo or go over a painting like I did with this. I was afraid that what I was going to do was going to be worse than before, causing me to paint me and Ron Swanson for eternity. Although part of me know redoing a painting is fine, the other part of me says "You couldn't get the first time. You suck. You failed. You can't paint. You have no talent. You are stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Everybody is watching you be a stupid wannabe painter. They all know you suck too". That part of me isn't very nice or helpful.

I did enjoy the process of painting the current version (aka getting rid of the whole Alex Katz aspect of it). I like the freedom of that. 

MEGAN'S FILM

It has been a while since I did any acting that wasn't related to Our Town. I liked getting together with friends and shooting a film. It is nice. I think that was what  Art & Fear was said. Something about making friends who also make art. That is a huge reason why STAC is so great. I have a community of people who love art just like I do. I can't get that in my Italian or Trigonometry class.

COMM CENTER

Oh the community center~ it has been a while since we last went there. It was fun and a really nice break from a stressful school day. The pulse thing we did was especially cool. It reminds me of something my therapist would tell me to do before I go to sleep or when I get anxious. It is one of those things that make you see everything in a different mind set. I liked how after focusing on ourselves and the sounds and things around us we all got up and looked at each other and gave this look that says "Oh my god I feel so strange but yet so... nice".

A TOWN CALLED PANIC

Sadly I had to leave school early to go to a doctor so I could finish this movie in STAC. But when I got home I re-watched the movie in its entirety on Netflix. My sister (who is my nemesis) wanted to watch tv when I started the film so she sat there for the first ten minutes going "THIS IS SO STUPID." "WOW THIS SUCKS." "HOW IS THIS FUNNY?" "WOW YOU HAVE TO READ SUBTITLES. SO DUMB." but after that she got quieter and started watching and asking questions about what is going on. At the end of the movie she tells my dad "That movie is so stupid." causing me to say "Then why did you watch the whole movie?" she didn't have a comeback.

I thought this movie was really funny and so ridiculous. I kept thinking about how it is claymation and how that must of taken for ever to do (I read after that it took 260 days to complete). I kept looking at all the little details in the background. I have a horse mask so maybe we can to a live action film of  A Town Called Panic.

Handy dandy book of monsters.

After a few hours of doing my homework and finishing a season of Breaking Bad, I felt like drawing something but I didn't know what to draw. So I decided to pick up my reference book on monsters and sketched a few creatures based on the description I was given.

My handy dandy book on monsters.

Hsing-Hsing
  A scholarly work published in China in 1885 describes the Hsing-Hsing as a small creature with a human face and a pig's body. It is able to speak.
  All Hsing-Hsing enjoy getting drunk and running around with shoes on their hooves. People attract these monsters by placing jugs of wine and straw sandals outside their homes. When the pig-monsters get tipsy and start putting on the sandals, people sneak up, capture them, and put them in cages. They make amusing, unusual pets, because you can talk to them, and they're not pig-headed.
Hui
  Huis are dogs with human heads. They live in the mountains of China and laugh whenever they see a person. Perhaps two-legged tail-less animals like us are funny to watch. Huis are described in the same tenth-century manuscript that described the Hsing-Hsing.

Manticore
  This is a lion the color of blood, with a human face and a triple row of sharp teeth. The manticore's toothy grin reaches from ear to ear. It often sports a dapper moustache. Its voice is musical, with flutelike noises that attract humans.
  People are the monster's favorite food. The manticore has a poisonous tail with deadly quills that can shoot great distances with remarkable accuracy. The monster first appeared in natural-history books during the seventeenth century.

I was going to put this stuff in my last blog post but I didn't.
While painting a lot in school, I was inking and doodling at home (sometimes inking doodles). Although I like working on painting I feel more comfortable with sketching. Here is some of what I've done with in that time.

Two characters that were originally doodles in my English and math notebook (no worries I still pay attention in class!). They are brother and sister.

I love the Halloween season because I can draw more demons and things on the morbid side with being questioned as much. 

FEAR.
I am a product of fear.
I think like most the class when I was reading the book all I could think, that this book was reading my mind (but wording it better).
I think we went over the book a lot in class but I was thinking about how  "ART IS ONLY MADE BY ORDINARY PEOPLE" again because Friday night I went to a concert with Caitlin. We saw this guy named Jon Walker. It was a small venue and there was about 10 to 15 people there. However quite of few of the girls were shrieking and crying fangirls and were there because Jon Walker used to play bass for the band Panic! at the Disco. I thought it was kind of annoying but it was also kind of funny because Jon Walker was so surprised by it. He is surprised that these girls he has never met before are shrieking for him because he is a ordinary person. After the show Caitlin and I talked to him. Super nice ordinary dude.

A thing we talked about again in STAC was the 365s. I tried and failed the 365 my Freshmen but I was think of maybe trying it again. I think what went wrong last time was I set too many rules of what my 365 was. It was not only a drawing a day but it had to be realistic and from a picture. Of course that is possible to do but I didn't get through with it. I was thinking if I did it again if it would be more about making art every single day for a year (I think I do that anyways just in the form of small doodles) or if it would be more about the quality of the art every single day for a year. 

Another thing I was thinking about 365 related is this youtuber named Bing has a project called 'Past Bing Future Bing' where in 2011 he made a video every other day and kept them to himself until 2012. In 2012 he still makes a video every other day but releases them WITH the 'Past Bings'. So one day I see a video from Bing from a year ago and the next day I get a video from Bing that he filmed that day or maybe the day before. It is a 'conversation through time' where Past Bing may ask Future Bing a question and Future Bing might answer it in the next video.

Here is the first Past Bing: 

you can watch PBFB in a playlist by week. Here is a link to the first week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grh4hokT6OQ&list=SP53C7D46962081896&feature=plcp

Caitlin and I met him in the summer when he visited America so we were in a Future Bing:

If I were to ever do something like this maybe I would do it on a smaller scale maybe over the course of two months. I think this project is cool but I also see how hard it can be.

‘I’m a simple man. I like pretty, dark-haired women and breakfast food’.

For my Alex Katz styled painting I painted Ron Swanson and me dress as Ron Swanson because Ron Swanson is awesome. To make the painting Alex Katz styled I made it very simple; less shades of colors not nearly as much detail as I would normally put into a painting. I also used a large canvas and didn't spend too much time on it. To be honest Alex Katz is not my favorite painter, I think he's okay, but not my favorite. However, I did enjoy painting this because it was Ron Swanson related.

Here is some photos of my process:

Ron Swanson's face.

here I am. My hair is too big but I don't feel like doing anything about that.

Bring on the breakfast foods.

And this is as much as I will work on it.

"Just give me all the bacon and eggs you have. Wait, wait. I'm worried what you just heard was, 'Give me a lot of bacon and eggs.' What I said was, 'Give me all the bacon and eggs you have.' Do you understand?"

 -Ron Swanson

The Fall.

What I got from it was, how important telling stories and imagination is. Throughout the story, Roy and Alexandria created a bond, and in the end you might even be able to say that the story saved Roy's life. Also how you have the ability to change things (to a certain extent). During the story we see Alexandria putting little changes like making the Red Bandit to be Roy, putting herself in the story, and even saving Roy/ the Red Bandit from killing himself. This also can relate to how the film was being made. When Catinca Untaru made the mistake of reading the 'e' in morphine as a 3, Tarsem Singh used that and put it into the film, changing the plot.


I really liked The Fall. I wasn't bored at all. I thought Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, and the rest of the cast's performance was great and the whole movie was visually beautiful. So beautiful I wanted to paint or draw fan art about it.

Alex Katz (the painter).

Here are some pertinent facts about Alex Katz that I found around the internet (mostly wikipedia. I trust wikipedia. I know I shouldn't. But I do.)


- Katz has admitted to destroying a thousand paintings during his first
ten years as a painter in order to find his style.-he tried to paint “faster than [he] can think.” interesting because I took a lot of time thinking on those last few paintings I did.-got inspiration from kitagawa utamaro
-influenced by films, television, and billboard advertising, Katz began
painting large-scale paintings, often with dramatically cropped faces-After 1964, Katz increasingly portrayed groups of figures. He would
continue painting these complex groups into the 1970s, portraying the
social world of painters, poets, critics, and other colleagues that
surrounded him.-In 1977, Alex Katz was asked to create a work to be produced in
billboard format above Times Square, New York City. The work, which was
located at 42nd Street and 7th Avenue, consisted of a frieze composed
of 23 portrait heads of women. Each portrait measured twenty feet high,
and was based on a study Katz did from life. The billboard extended 247
feet long along two sides of the RKO General building and wrapped in
thee tiers above on a 60-foot tower. Katz was commissioned in 1980 by
the US General Service Administration's Art in Architecture Program to
create an oil on canvas mural in the new United States Attorney’s
Building at Foley Square, New York City. The mural, located inside the
Silvio V. Mollo Building at Cardinal Hayes Place & Park Row, is 20 feet
high by 20 feet wide-Katz attended Woodrow Wilson High School for its unique program that
allowed him to devote his mornings to academics and his afternoons to
the arts. That reminds me of STAC.

Some useful technical info
-To make one of his large works, Katz paints a small oil sketch of a
subject on a masonite board; the sitting might take an hour and a half.
He then makes a small, detailed drawing in pencil or charcoal, with the
subject returning, perhaps, for the artist to make corrections. Katz
next blows up the drawing into a "cartoon," sometimes using an overhead
projector, and transfers it to an enormous canvas via "pouncing"—a
technique used by Renaissance artists, involving powdered pigment
pushed through tiny perforations pricked into the cartoon to recreate
the composition on the surface to be painted. Katz pre-mixes all his
colors and gets his brushes ready. Then he dives in and paints the
canvas—12 feet wide by 7 feet high or even larger—in a session of six
or seven hours.


His style is very simple, but you can still tell who that person is. When I mean simple, I mean he doesn't use too many different shades of colors and details. I noticed a lot of bright colors. He also paints on a very large scale, which is why I will be painting on a huge canvas. I don't think I've ever worked on a painting this big (not including any sets I've painted). Alex Katz Also paints celebrities, like I will for my School of Katz painting. I paint celebrities a lot because it makes me more of a perfectionist about it. Of course being a perfectionist can get unhealthy, but it can also push me a lot to do better, and to make things right. If I mess up how a stranger looks in a painting, I wouldn't be as upset about as I would if it were somebody I know of. I've said it before but I don't want to put them to shame. This makes me work harder.

Not sure where, but I feel like I have seen this painting before. I'm pretty sure I've seen  a few Katz paintings in person before. It is of his son Vincent.

I think this one is my favorite. Not quite sure why.

I like the lines on the glasses here.

qvestions

PART ONE

1) You've worked on a group film and on your own. In which situation are you most comfortable - group or solo? Which do you work best in?
I think I'm more comfortable by myself but I do like to do group projects too. I like working groups because  it can have lots of cool ideas that come together, or it makes the workload easier. If you are in a good group, everything is a lot of fun and you can get a lot done. If the group isn't so good it can take forever to get things done and be extremely frustrating. I think I like working with myself because in most situations I get things done faster and I have control of what I want to do for the most part.


Both are good though.

 2) What did you learn that you expected to learn?
A lot of what I did was more for practice and getting myself back into painting. I had moment where I had to re-teach myself how to paint with oils. I did learn a little bit more about mixing colors.

3) What did you learn that you didn't expect to learn?  
I learned how hard it is to work with colors (especially skin tones) in comparison to doing a painting in Payne's Gray and Zinc White. I also learned that with paints a lot of the time it doesn't come together right away you have to build up all the colors and stuff before it really looks like something or good.

4) What didn't you learn that you expected to learn?
To be honest I didn't have too many expectations, or plans for learning that week. I wanted to get some paintings done. So I did that.

 5) Praise your amazing achievement and explain your brilliant plan for pulling it off.
These paintings are so good you can even hang them on the ceiling because it will be the first thing you will want to see when you wake up. If you need a self confidence boost get rid of all the mirrors in your house and replace them with these paintings so when you go to look at the mirror you will be like "DAYUM I LOOK GOOD" when it really just my painting and you should probably brush you hair.
My brilliant plan was to focus on not only accuracy on drawing, proportions, and on colors, and shades. I used my time wisely and paced myself so these paintings could be as fabulous as they are.

PART TWO


1) How much time did you spend working?
I spent all my time in STAC and even spent time at home working on it (thankfully that week I didn't have too much homework).

2) How much time did you spend thinking about the work - sort of sitting there and staring at it, or listening to it over and over again, etc.?
It was different for each painting. The first one I barely did that in comparison to the second and third painting. This happened the most with the second painting because I didn't know when to call the painting 'finished'. I spent a lot of time looking at it trying to find more to do with it but I couldn't find anything so I called it done.

3) How much time did you spend doing other stuff that seems like work to that make you think you're working but you're not?
Again with the second painting I did that when I wasn't sure what else to work on. I would add very minuscule details in hopes it will change how it looks so it feels done but it really didn't do anything.

4) How much time did you spend socializing?
I talked while I worked. I don't think it really got in the way of getting my work done.

5) How did you use your community?
People passing by telling me what they liked about gave me some justification.
Caitlin spent a lot time last year learning how to mix paints so she helped out with that, and she would tell me what looked weird or what I should fix. It's helpful because sometimes I don't see my mistakes right away.

6) Rip apart your awful project and how did such a disaster happen?
Oh god, the colors just look awful, a child could probably do better. It doesn't even look like the reference photos, if I stepped in paint and kicked a canvas it would probably look better than the paintings I did this week. A lot of it looks sloppy and not proportionate. The skin tones make the person look very ill or dead. I put shame to the people the paintings are of.   

7) You've completed a step on your path. What is your next step?
Try to figure out what I can do to improve and make what I'm doing come easier and look nicer.

Intentions.

After only using, pencil, charcoal, conte crayons, ink, and my digital art tablet over the past few months I decided to dedicate this week to work on my oil painting skills. For the first painting of Cillian Murphy I only used Payne's Gray and Zinc White oil paints to get comfortable with using the paints again. I chose that picture because of the good shapes and shades. Also because Cillian Murphy is my favorite actor. The second painting of Gerard Way to work on painting with more colors, learning to control the colors. I liked some of the shadows on his face in the picture so that is why I chose to paint that. Gerard Way is one of my favorite people but I don't draw/paint him often so I wanted to do that. Last one of the sad old woman was also for working on colors, mainly the skin tones which I have the most difficulty with. I got the picture of the old woman on google images (no she is not my grandma). It was a nice picture with good skin tones.

Overall this was for the sake of doing something I haven't been able to work on for a while, in hopes of learning and improvement.

Today I tried working on the painting I started yesterday. I mixed up some colors did little details but nothing too drastic, it pretty much looks the same as it did yesterday. I eventually didn't know what else to do but I still felt like I needed to work on. I didn't know where to stop. I spent a lot of time looking at it wanting to find something I could do to make it better but I eventually couldn't and had to call it finished.

I think tomorrow I'm painting an older person.

I don't appreciate the colors at the moment.

So today was much harder than yesterday for me. Maybe I have my days mixed up and today's blog post is about problems and yesterday's about inspiration.

What happened that was different from yesterday was instead if just using Payne's Gray and Zinc White I used a whole lot of colors.  I ran into a lot problems with mixing the colors to match the reference picture (it was Gerard Way today). It was aggravating having it not come together right away, I had to build up colors and colors and colors for it to kinda look human and somewhat like the picture. I even got to the point where I was so fed up with it I washed it all off and started over again (I have never done that before). I barely got anything done by the time school was over. Thankfully I didn't have too much homework and spent some time working on it more at home while catching up with my dvr (mostly The Graham Norton Show).

I don't think it really looks like the picture but it is better than it was before so I'm glad about that.

 I think I'll work on it more tomorrow.

So today I started painting for what seems to be months. It's strange but I had the issue that I forgot where to start. I slowly started getting into it, starting with a background or base color, and then everything came back to it's normal pace. Like I said in my last post painting people I respect is somewhat intimidating to be and also causes me to become more of a perfectionist. However I do my best to not let that stop me.

Today I did/started a painting of my favorite actor, Cillian Murphy

the lights in the room made it look kinda different and the camera kinda sucks but I don't know if I want to work on it more. I was just working on it. It started aggravating me, but I'm hoping I'll like it if I look at it later.

 I've seen him do many different roles (even playing a woman in a few) and each one he does very well. I also think it is kinda cool how he avoids the typical 'famous person' life style and rarely talks about his personal life in interviews. I'm not quite sure why I respect that so much. Maybe it is because it gives me the sense that he does acting just for acting not really for any of the other benefits. Watch movies he is in. He is great.

I painted him today because he's my favorite actor and because the picture had a lot of distinct shapes due to his intense cheekbones.

I'm going to have to decide if I'm going to keep working on this tomorrow or start a new painting.

Intention?

I intend on working on my oil paintings skills this week. I have not painted since last year in STAC due to the  fact I have mostly worked with pencil, charcoal, and conte crayons at FIT. I think I'll paint people I'm intimidated to paint. I get this thing when I draw/paint certain people that I respect that person so much that I get intimidated drawing them because in my mind if they happen to come out poorly that I have disrespected their greatness and I am a shame.



This could be the Sunday night anxiety talking but I fear that by painting I am not stepping out of any boundaries and I'm playing everything same. Yet I feel that is the best idea I can come up with by tomorrow. I have the constant feeling that everything I am doing is somehow wrong. Even if it isn't wrong know maybe a year from now it will be and I will want to punch past Sarah in the face. I am really trying to stray from these thoughts and search for my own ataraxia (Ataraxia is my new favorite word. Well maybe it is a tie with the word scooter. Not sure yet.).

7 questions.

First week of STAC. Glad to see all your lovely faces old and new. I still feel like I don't know all the newbies because I have been filming but I'm sure I'll get to that soon.
On to the 7 questions! Please excuse the highlighting I can't undo it for some reason.


1. What is the first creative moment you remember?

I'm not exactly sure what age I was but I remember dancing and singing some jibberish or something prancing around the room in costumes because my parent would play music. Mostly classic rock. The first song I ever knew the title to was 'Money' by Pink Floyd from the money sounds in the beginning. The concept of guessing song titles this way became rather tricky when I came across Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco. Sometimes when my cousin came over we would use Twizzlers as microphones and sing N'SYNC songs (we had a low budget). 

I don't remember when I started drawing. It was just something I've always done. I used to keep little notebooks and make up my own little creatures and stuff. 

2. Was anyone there to appreciate it?

My parents were. I don't think my younger sister was alive to bother me yet so I think just them and probably any friends and family we had over.

3. What is the best idea you've ever had?

I think my best idea was that I never stop drawing. Some kids play with paints and crayons when they are little and they little and for some reason just stop. Maybe it is because they eventually say 'Oh I can't draw' (I hate when people tell me this. It isn't that you can't draw. You just don't draw enough). Maybe their parents pushed them into soccer or something I don't know. 

Also this week I bought a horse mask and I feel it is one of the best purchases I have made  

4. What made it  great in your mind?

If I stopped drawing my life would be so different in ways I don't want to imagine. If I never stopped drawing I may have not been in STAC. If was never in STAC I may not be friends with the people I am friends with today and school would be so much more depressing and boring.

5. What is the dumbest idea?

One time when I was younger I was at my cousin's house and I thought it would be an excellent idea to dance to ABBA's 'Dancing Queen' on swivel chairs and of course I fell off and broke the two bones going into my wrist. This is the same cousin I would perform N'SYNC with.

6. What made it stupid?

A better question would be what did not make that stupid. Don't dance on swivel chairs. I know that sounds like a really fun time. It will be a bad time.  

7. Can you connect the dots that led you to this idea?

We are giggly children that did dumb things like that all the time. 

What have I done this summer?

    Hello everybody! Hope all your summers have been well. To be honest I am really afraid of going into the 11th grade. Everybody telling how much it is 'the worst grade ever' with all the work and big tests. I'm not in school yet and I am already forced to read two depressing books for AP English. However I'm excited to come back for STAC. STAC is the only reason I want to go back to school. This July Caitlin and I took a three week pre college course at the Fashion Institute of Technology. We took a life drawing class which was good practice and help to drawing the body. Some of it was stuff I haven't worked too much on that was kinda harder like foreshortening but a lot of it was stuff I have worked on during STAC. The teacher mentioned a lot of artist I already knew about because of STAC. The only bad part of this class was lugging a huge portfolio (to fit my 15x24 sketch pad) around the city.  I have tons and tons of drawings but here is some.

We started off with basic porportions

counting with heads.

 worked on some foreshortening

this model was very sassy and asked me about retro disco.

 I forgot what to call this

I'm pretty sure this was studying planes. This model looked like the terminator and fell asleep in this pose. This is charcoal and conte crayon.

 did this stuff

I don't know what we were studying that day. Maybe lighting and shadows. I got picked to let FIT photograph my art and put it on their site.

 and on the last day I did this

We spent the last day on one pose instead of multiple poses so I had a lot of time left.

I hope to take the pre college courses next summer.

I also did some more digital drawings in my free time

Crossover between Doctor Who and Adventure Time.

I don't know.

I did a doodle with lyrics from the MGMT song 'It's Working'.

Other than that I spent my summer catching up on tv, movies, visiting my house in Vermont, internet, messing with photoshop, and reading two books I didn't want to read.

ANYWAYS. Excited for this year in STAC can't wait to see faces I haven't seen in two months and meet some newbies. (I'm already starting my third year in STAC! Time is flying by.)

Midnight Thunderstorm Doodles.

It is raining cats and dogs! I downloaded a new drawing program on my computer called FireAlpaca so I was testing it out and made this

it is 4am now so I feel I should probably get some sleep.

The end of the world was the name of the girl.

Hey there. How is everybody? Hope finals are treating you well (but who are we kidding).
When I'm not studying I have been doing more sketching and other things like that. Making a bit more use to my tablet. More original art than fan art or drawings of actual people. Most of it is inspired by whatever music my spotify is playing at the moment. Sometimes I drew on top of pictures I may have taken in the past (I hate drawing backgrounds so this is a solution). Here is some of what I have done:

Drew this a couple minutes ago listening to some of Jon Walker's music. I drew all the fish and water stuff because I really need to go back to my lake house in Vermont. That place puts me at peace.

Inspired by the Arctic Monkeys song 'She's Thunderstorms'. This is a picture took last year in Vermont right before a storm came.

Life of the scales.

I take a lot of interest in the zodiac and my horoscopes. I am a Libra. I for the most part fit the description rather nicely with the exception of being really flirty, and very extroverted. I found this site that goes into a lot of detail on the zodiac. It has me put in the exact time and city where I was born and then tells me more about that. It said something about how even though Venus is my ruling planet it is possible for Saturn to have a little bit of influence too, making me a tad more introverted. It also said something about coming off as a perfectionist which relates to my enneagram too.

Here is the site if you are interested.

I don't know what it is about the zodiac that I like so much. Maybe it is the whole mythical aspect to it. Maybe it makes me feel justified in a weird way. Maybe I want some sort of identity. Can't say I completely believe in the day to day horoscope thing but the little facts about my zodiac make a lot of sense with me.

 I guess since we all took our enneagram test my little horoscopes are not cool.

Brick by Brick.

So the music video is not going to be happening by STAC night yet I am oddly calm and okay with that. Maybe it is because I love the song to the point I feel me presenting won't do it any justice. Maybe it gives me more time to focus on the quality of other things (artwork, school, etc). I still want to do it, but I didn't want to rush it and make it come out bad just so I can get it in on time. Maybe over the summer if my group isn't doing anything we can get together and do that. As far as the starving artist wall I have enough art to put up so I am alright in that category but the wall itself is what needs work. Michelle's typography is so insane I am afraid to touch it. She has some freakishly straight lines! I hope we are able to get to painting us on the wall but getting the words out must come first. Ever since I saw the people from STAC on the wall from the years before my time here, I wanted to do that too. Maybe another time!

I really love working with the ink although it is something new to me I feel comfortable doing it. Glad I can use something other than a bad ball point pen or a sharpie to outline my artwork now. For the wall Michelle and I am doing I really like the idea I am just scattering around for all the art to put up to fill the wall. I am becoming fearful for the "Goodnight Socialite" video but thankfully we start filming tomorrow after school. Oh man I am booked! So much stuff to do so little time I won't lie and say I'm not freaking out. Quite afraid actually because I would hate to disappoint. At this point I could not live with the idea of being a failure on my mind so hopefully that won't come up. With all the studying, essay writing, last minute grades to put in, many drawings to get done, Captain Canada, and shoot the music video I am getting a bit worn out physically and mentally. I don't even know how I can pull it all of quite yet. This is why I hate time. I feel like it is never on my side. Time scares me. Not in the 'Oh no my clock's number's just change I will die' but it gets me really anxious. Even when I was little I would have such problems sleeping because I was afraid of how many hours of sleep I will get, that if I didn't sleep at a certain time I won't wake up. (And look at me now barely getting any sleep at all!) Thinking back on it now I was silly because getting anxious about that just kept me awake even later.  But that was a little before I was diagnosed. ANYWAYS. I'm not trying to say that I don't like everything I am doing I just am afraid of the outcome of having a lot to do. I think that is a logical fear, yes? It is the end of the year I'm just really worn out and ready to get this over with.

Captain Canada

First day working on Captain Canada. We read through the script today and I started working on a song I am singing with Danny. Very funny, I like what I see so far, can't wait for the final product. Tomorrow I want to work on inking. Maybe not inking the comic right away but inking something. I want to get used to working with ink because I don't want to get the ink all over the comic and ruin it!! I REALLY have to film the 'Goodnight Socialite' music video. I am hoping we can get at least half of the filming done Thursday. As per usual time (or lack of time) is giving quite a bit of anxiety. I don't want this to be rushed to the point where it comes out bad. Although we have not worked on it in a couple weeks I still care about it.

Today I started the comic I was planning to start yesterday. The book Luke gave me helped a lot with anatomy when it comes to different poses. That book has many good poses to work with. You can only stand straight for so long! I only got about two pages done, so I want to somehow work quicker but have consistent quality. I don't think I will finish this comic by the end of the quarter but I will get somewhere with it. Since I find drawing backgrounds boring, I can't say I am incredibly great at them. Sure it gets the point across, but I wouldn't call it very good. Already this is giving me more practice with that than I thought I would even do! I am practicing things I wasn't even planning on practicing. Tomorrow I think my group will finally start filming our main project, but I if I have free time I will work more on the comic tomorrow. Not sure if I will get to it though, tomorrow is the day before my first AP test. Yikes.

I love the Stephen Colbert AND Maurice Sendak! That interview is so wonderful, Mr. Sendak will be greatly missed. Growing up reading his books and watching Little Bear (He illustrated the books and drew for the show as well) it wasn't until I saw that interview in January with Colbert I found out of clever and hilarious he is. Colbert is wonderful as well. Last New York Comic Con I went to I bought a little cartoon version of Colbert and it is on my wall as I am typing this. The artist Kevin Bolk drew it (Great fan artist! Check him out, very funny!).

Today as far as working goes, I decided to start a comic for the girl with bull on her head ( I should probably give her a proper name soon.) If you haven't read my past post she looks kinda like this:

I was trying to work on her anatomy today but the books I was using was only muscular males so that wasn't working out too well.

Heaven Help Us

I forgot to blog yesterday but yesterday I was working on anatomy by working on this commission. Trying to finish it up soon. I hope she will like it. Maybe I'll post it when I'm done.

Today was more of brainstorming of what my side salad should be. I think I will stick to the comic book idea but I'm still coming up with ideas. So I sketched some out. 

The boy and the girl- A comic about two friends that decide to join some 'rebellion' (but they both kinda suck at shooting ray guns and stuff)

The girl with the bull skull on her head- Talented with a gun the girl gets kicked out of the town she lived when she was younger because she was accused of a murder in the town. Few years later she returns to the town to defend it against evil forces.

Cartoon dead girl- that is some doodle I draw a lot on the side of my papers at school. Kinda like the guy with the pigeon that we heard in class. She doesn't have much of a story she just kinda stands there and says something morbid or sadistic. She is also scarily happy that she is dead.

Thor- John told me to draw Thor. So I did.

Blindfolded girl- A couple years ago I made a comic based on the zodiac because I find that very interesting ( I still find it very interesting. I guess that isn't cool though because of all the enneagram stuff) The girl I drew is the Libra, my sign. She is blindfolded because the scales are a symbol in justice, and justice is blind so.... I was thinking of redesign all the characters I made in the past and come up with a whole new story or something.

Girl at bottom- I don't have any story for her. I was thinking of maybe drawing serious things with funny captions or something. Like a person looking very serious but saying "I fucking hate peas."

Just some ideas. Still in the decision process. Need to figure this out soon.

Destruction is a from of creation.

Today I worked on anatomy again. I want to learn anatomy, so  I can improve my drawing. But to make this art, to put what I am learning and using it, that is what I haven't come up with yet. One idea coulde be incorporating comics into this somehow but I am still working this out. For my main project I am getting a little worried, not because we don't have ideas set and stuff, but we haven't started filming anything yet. I am afraid of time. We still have to decide were we are filming this, I don't know if it will be at my house or Danny's or where in my house or Danny's. Hopefully we can resolve this issue soon and get filming! First we half to film the 'flashback' scenes. To make this work I think we have to make sure that those scenes work before we go to the present. Because as a corpse I might have to get a bit of fake blood on me and possibly what I am wearing, we are doing those after, so I can maintain clean attire when I need it.

Over the weekend I made Caitlin watch Donnie Darko (that is my favorite movie), and we got an idea for a shot, so I guess that counts as some research. We might try to steal the shot where Donnie is outside talking to Frank for the first time and has a somewhat dark look on his face and then smirks a little. If not we might steal something from this movie.